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Advocate at 200: Imagining George Washington in modern times

An artist's rendering of what George Washington would look like in 1939 by NEA Staff Artist Harry Grissinger.(Photo: Advocate Archives)

Every Saturday in 2020 The Advocate will publish a historic article in celebration of its bicentennial. To suggest a story to resurrect from our archives, send an an email to advocate@newarkadvocate.com.

This story appeared on the front page of the Feb. 22, 1939 edition, George Washington's birthday with the world on the brink of war. It was written by Willis Thornton, a NEA Service Staff Writer. It was accompanied by an artist's rendering of Washington in modern times by NEA Staff Artist Harry Grissinger.

George Washington as he might appear today

The keen level eyes, the strong nose, the firm mouth of George Washington probably would be quite as impressive to his fellow-men today as in 1796. Modern dress could not change or weaken the impression of character that shines in this distinguished face.

It is dangerous to guess what would be the thinking of the Father of His Country today if he faced a world so different than that to which he delivered his farewell address. One can only read his words and guess.

Yet some of those words are so plainly applicable to today's problems, that the stern Washington mouth might speak them today just as he did 143 years ago.

He warned that only a strong union could save his country from the necessity of "foreign alliances, attachments and intrigues," and avoid "those overgrown military establishments which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty."

He would perhaps stress again the interdependence of all parts of the country, the dangers of factionalism and the desirability of "good faith and justice to all nations." "Nothing is more essential," he said then, and might well say today, "than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others should be excluded."

"The period is not far off," he prophesied, "when we may defy material injury from external annoyance . . . when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice shall counsel . . .Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? . . . Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people out to be constantly awake . . ."

Other days, other ways. Washington today would find a different world in more important respects than mere dress. How would that grave face look upon it? We do not know. We only know that the level eyes would look upon today's world clearly, and sensibly, and calmly.